The present invention relates to a coaxial connector for connecting a coaxial cable to a printed electronic-circuit board.
The installation of components on printed electronic-circuit boards has for a long time been carried out with the aid of pointed elements provided on the components and which are inserted into plated-through holes in the board.
The attachment is carried out by means of a wave-soldering operation which makes it possible to attach all the components to the board at the same time.
More recently, it has been proposed to mount components on printed electronic-circuit boards using a technique called "surface mount" technique.
In this case, holes passing through the board are not provided, except where necessary for establishing electrical connections between various layers of circuits, which layers are provided on the board, and the components are fitted at their rear portion with flat lugs which are soldered onto pads provided at the surface of the board.
This technique enables the boards to be miniaturized and the operations for mounting the components on the boards to be automated.
Efforts have therefore naturally been made to produce all sorts of miniaturized components, and especially electrical connectors, which are capable of being installed and attached automatically to printed boards, especially using surface-mount means.
It has emerged that problems arise for the electrical connectors intended to connect a cable to the board, especially because the connector element mounted on the board has to be subjected to quite large mechanical stresses during coupling and uncoupling operations, most often performed manually, with the corresponding connector attached to the cable.
In the case of surface mounting, the coupling and uncoupling forces are transmitted to a great extent to the soldered joints and the pads of the board. In order to avoid breaking the connection of the connector element attached to the board, mechanical means for attachment to the board, especially of the nut and screw type, are most often added to this connector element. This prevents miniaturization of the connector to as high a degree as would be desired, and introduces an additional mounting step, such that the connector cannot be attached to the board during the automatic mounting and attachment of the other components.
Now, in modern equipment, it is important to have connectors, such as coaxial connectors, as miniaturized as possible, which are capable of being economically manufactured in volume and capable of being installed and attached completely automatically on printed boards.
By way of application, portable mobile radio-telephony equipment may be cited such as that of the new European generation GSM (Groupe Special Mobile), which is intended to operate at frequencies of 900 MHz, and for which it is important to produce microminiaturized coaxial connectors in order to provide the connection of coaxial cables to the printed electronic-circuit boards with which the equipment is fitted.